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Sony WA1 Wireless Boombox

By: Travis Booysen on June 29, 2007 2:47 AM

sony-vaio-wa1.jpg

Looking for a way to listen to your entire music collection anywhere around the house? The Sony VAIO WA1 wireless boombox certainly provides a convenient way to do it by streaming ATRAC, MP3, WMA, and AAC music formats over an existing wireless home network from any PC.

The WA1 uses SonicStage, iTunes, and Windows Media Player, but on-unit controls, a remote control, and an LCD displaying five lines of text makes selecting and viewing music simple. Analogue and digital audio-out ports connect your computer’s music to your home stereo, but music isn’t limited to your computer’s library, as the option of listening to internet radio is also given. Music can be played independently of a computer with 128MB of internal memory and a line-in stereo input to connect to a portable device.

Considering that Sony’s wireless boombox is mostly for use around the house, the four-hour battery life shouldn’t be too limiting. The $350 price tag includes a six-band graphic equalizer, headphone jack, and alarm clock.

[Product Page via Akihabara News]

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Comments

Brett on July 26, 2007 9:10 PM

I did a little research on this unit. I could be wrong but ... you will need a Sony Laptop or Desktop PC to run the config on this stereo. I know it says differently on this ad but I suggest before buying you do further research.

mark on July 3, 2008 7:02 AM

I bought one of these in Hong and have taken it back home to Sydney. On trying to run the setup, i just found out the installation requires me to have japanese installed in Windows!!

Anyone know where I can get an english version of the installation software?

FireCue on January 5, 2009 3:00 PM

Out of the box, this machine did it's job well but with the Vaio vgf-WA1 firmware v1.2 update, it works great!

I already had the OEM CD software installed. That was straightforward and easy, contrary to other i-net opinions. After setting up sonicstage, I had immediate access to all my music.

Here's a translated Sony Japanese home page for the Vaio WA1.

http://74.125.93.104/translate_c?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://vcl.vaio.sony.co.jp/support/acc/vgf-wa1.html

The FAQ's are useful but the big deal is the complete update history at the bottom of the page. So far, I have only used the "VGF-WA1 software" update. The install was smooth and painless. It detects WinXP-sr3, which requires a separate download and install for the wireless adapter manager, and notifies you of the skipped step in the install. The separate download is not necessary if you do not use the USB wireless adapter.

There is no trick language selection. It doesn't even ask, just installs in english (on mine).

The v1.2 firmware update is a substantial improvement but there is even more in the enhanced settings tool! (Still no internal memory access, but some free web radio access and rss feeds) The environment features access some WA1 settings, through a browser interface, that are not available on the WA1.

The NTP clock set is one of those, although I'm not sure if that setting sticks if all power is disconnected.

Anyway, that's my give-back for today.
/rjw


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